Red versus Blue: Facebook through the eyes of the opposition

On Friday, Donald Trump was sworn in as the forty-fifth president of the United States of America. On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in cities all over the world to protest the man’s ascent to power – comparing him to despotic dictators of yesteryear and lamenting what they fear will be a dramatic reversal of civil rights for women and minorities in America.

Those in Trump’s corner, however, see the businessman as a political outsider with the influence and tactics necessary to elicit real change in a government that has become overgrown and economically nonviable. Many Trump supporters aren’t interested in reversing progressive trends, they’re more concerned with the nation’s economy, national defense, and often, are merely seeking respite from liberal policies that have left rural Americans out in the cold for the better part of a decade.

On the Left, Trump’s campaign slogan, “make America great again,” means a reversal of efforts to place women, minorities and the LGBTQ community on equal footing with the rest of Americans. On the Right, the very same slogan represents a harkening to an era when each tax paying American’s share of the national debt wasn’t creeping up on $167,000 – and when the number of Americans who owned their own homes wasn’t at its lowest point in fifty years.

Americans have one of the most advanced data sharing infrastructures in the world, allowing people of varying viewpoints and priorities to instantly share messages with anyone willing to read, watch, or listen. We have more communication and information disseminating tools at our disposal than any generation of Americans to come before us, yet somehow, we seem to be more polarized than ever. The internet, once lauded as a means by which the world could come together, instead seems to be ripping us apart.

How the hell did that happen?

While there are a dozen papers published a minute regarding social media and political trends and where the two intertwine (2016’s election was certainly good for graduate students scrambling to come up with a thesis paper) the Wall Street Journal recently released a tool that makes the political polarization of America so easy to understand you don’t have to subject yourself to reading academic journals to get it – you need only to look at your Facebook newsfeed.

“Blue Feed, Red Feed” is an amalgam of Facebook content shared by users of the social media platform since 2015 and assembled by the Wall Street Journal. The posts reflected on the page all fall into one political extreme or the other – either very conservative or very liberal – and were collected as a part of a large scale study of Facebook content and trends. Although the presentation resembles two newsfeeds, the truth is a bit more nuanced – as the Wall Street Journal themselves explain, “These aren’t intended to resemble actual individual news feeds. Instead, they are rare side-by-side looks at real conversations from different perspectives.”

The political posts are divided into eight hot-button categories: President Elect Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, abortion, President Obama, guns, ISIS, and Presidential Debate. Simply pick the topic you’d like to use as the means by which you lose faith in humanity, and start scrolling through the side by side comparison of content shared by those of each political extreme. You’ll likely see posts that look familiar to you – I know I did – as the content was not invented to demonstrate the level of our society’s political depravity, it was merely curated.

It doesn’t take long to start to notice the vast differences in the ways stories are reported and addressed by popular websites within each community.

It’s easy to see why each side is flabbergasted by the extremism and foul play demonstrated by the opposing party: seeing these feeds side by side would lead me to believe everyone in America has lost their minds.

Pushing further, I tried a subject that’s near and dear to my heart: guns. I love my guns, a few of them even have names, but even I can appreciate the concerns some people have about gun laws in the United States – none of us want criminals to have access to firearms, and mass shootings, particularly in schools, are too awful to put into words… but how do we start a dialogue regarding gun legislation when this is what each side of the debate reads each morning over coffee?

We’ve discussed the issue of confirmation bias before, and as I’ve pointed out, we’re all susceptible to it. CNN, ever at the forefront of breaking news, seems to have just heard of it though – touting a recent study that suggests people tend to seek out information that supports their pre-existing beliefs as breaking news.

So what can we do to combat the growing divide separating Americans along ideological lines? Well, like confirmation bias itself, the solution isn’t a new development either: it’s just good old fashioned self-awareness and critical thinking.

While the examples I showed are fairly extreme (but certainly not the most extreme) cases of the Left and Right operating in separate intellectual spheres, it’s safe to say that many (dare I even say, most) Americans are reasonable folks, we just have a lot going on in our lives. Decision fatigue sets in at a certain point, where we’re emotionally exhausted by the practical challenges of our lives – a fight with the wife, a flat tire on the way to work – and we log onto Facebook in search of an escape, not another mental chore. Sometimes we may eye a shared post with a bit of cynicism, but often we’ll just click “like” or “share” when we see something we like or want to share.

But no matter how advanced Facebook’s fake news filters become (a responsibility I’m wary of placing on the platform and even more wary of awarding to mainstream news sites as they’ve proposed) there’s always going to be questionable content making its way to us in one way or another. Like it or not, the onus has to be on us to start being the change we’re demanding from Facebook, Google and others.

Telling them to prevent the spread of fake news is literally demanding that they censor our own posts. Facebook hasn’t been sharing Infowars and Occupy Democrats posts, we have been, and when we ask the platform to be the judge, we relinquish our own responsibility for the content we share. It’s like ordering a glass of water at a restaurant, pouring it on our own laps, and then demanding the restaurant do something about all this lap water that’s going around.

So for the sake of the nation, think hard about the content you’re sharing and your intended audience. Are you participating in a conversation or yelling in an echo chamber? Are you trying to make things better, or are you just jumping on the hog pile?

About the Author

Alex Hollings
Alex Hollings served as an active duty Marine for six and a half years before being medically retired from service. As an athlete, Hollings has raced exotic cars, played Marine Corps football and college rugby, fought in cages, and even wrestled alligators. As a scholar, he has earned a master’s degree in Communications from Southern New Hampshire University, as well as undergraduate degrees in Corporate and Organizational Communications and Business Management.

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Patrick G

My solution to this problem:
1. Never have a Facebook account
2. Cut the cord - no more TV
3. Get news from History books, or Sofrep

Ranger Baggins

I recently read a FB post from a friend of mine in D.C. that articulated this point really well. It was extremely sarcastic, and basically was written as a set of rules for governing one's social media posts and perceptions. The steps were essentially to only post stuff that "shows the extreme stupidity of opponents to your worldview" and to confront "opposing beliefs by assuming the worst about the other side (because its obviously true they want to destroy America)". I think the last step in the fake (yet all too real process) was the most poignant and it was simply one word... "Hitler"

Mustang Voodoo1

Once again Alex, great piece! Deftly worded and you traversed the proverbial political mine field with grace and style...
Solid work brother!

TexJ3

Very timely article Alex. Great points.
T3

Susan B

Right on target with this one, Alex. I had to make conscious decisions not to share the posts that suit my bias (of course I have one) on Facebook, and ignore those that hit my wall that aren't to my liking. Facebook posts don't seem to change people's mindsets, just reinforce the ones they already have...either pro or con. People with a strong bias will usually tend to take things out of context to reinforce their positions. Cherry-picking has become a propaganda art form.